ABSTRACT
Throughout the seventh century Athens does not seem to stand out especially from the other Greek communities. But from the sixth century on, these words gradually come to apply to it: ‘Verum haec tantum alias inter caput extulit urbes/Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi’ [But this city towers above others as much as the cypresses do above the swaying viburnums] (Virgil, Eclogues, I, 24-25).
